Welcome LGF readers. I hope this post helps improve your hope for the future.

Some would say we are disconnecting more in the Internet era. Some would say we’re connecting more. Because of the Internet, we can all share in this story:

From John of OPFOR Blog: Cpl Patrick R Nixon, USMC, died in Iraq Mach 23, 2003. Via an article in Smithsonian magazine, Patrick’s father, David Nixon, was connected to an Iraqi living in the marsh area of Iraq, Dr. Azzam Alwash.

Below is a link that shows you a very basic construct of functional societies: Some go forward to protect and lose their lives. Others benefit. The benefactors proclaim their thankfulness for the sacrifice. Read and understand and know there are those who value the sanctity of life. These ones are the “Marsh Arabs” of Iraq.

Warning: If you cry easily, or even with difficulty, make sure you’re ready in case you do.

“A People Have Been Set Free”

H/T: Gulf Coast Pundit

Also, while you’re here, please consider learning more about the Valour-IT project that provides laptops and voice activated software to our disabled service members. I posted about it here. Thank you for your interest and possible assistance in this wonderful work.

I missed the “anniversary” of this in posting days, as the incident discussed here happened on October 2nd, but come the beginning of next year, the same number of years ago, I became involved in the incident where the mid-watch (0000-0400) team on USS SARATOGA (CV-60) made a terrible mistake and launched two NATO Sea Sparrow RIM-7 missiles into the former US GEARING Class destroyer, then the TCG Mauvenet. Some of the details are here.

Three Admirals are named in the Wikipeida notes, two of which I personally worked with during my career, and the third I knew of. One of my shipmates from a training command was working for Admiral Dur that night, and was present earlier in the evening when the SARATOGA Operations Officer came into the Flag Watch Command Center and mentioned they were going to play in the exercise using their NATO Sea Sparrow system (NSSMS). The reported response from Admiral Dur was “Yeah, right!”

RIM-7 Launch from USS BADGER (FF-1071)

The NSSMS was derived from the successful air-launched Sparrow AIM-7 series, brought “down” to serve on ships as a “point defense” system. This means it was designed to be used against threats coming at the platform where the missile system was located. It was by no means an “area” defense system, as it had a very limited capability against “crossing” (read headed for another target) threats. The first installations were Frankenstein like conglomerations of a F-4 Phantom II radar system, mounter on a stanchion for manual aiming and targeting by a sailor on the open deck, which would then fire a missile from an eight celled launcher, adapted from the Anti-Submarine Rocket (ASROC) system. The system, in this configuration, was the Basic Point Defense System (BPDMS – pronounced Bee-Ped-EMus in verbal reference). It was a start, but the operator, strapped to the send and receive antennas mounted on the station on the open deck, had to be verbally pointed in the direction of the target, then he would sweep the area of sky where the target is supposed to be, while listening to the audible return signal of the radar, which would tell him when he had acquired the inbound target by a change in pitch. He also had the firing key for the system, as he was the only one who had the ability to judge if he was on target or not.

More later, but this will be presented in series, as once I get through the technology involved, then it will be on to the investigation.

Capt Lex sent us to the archives for entertainment a few days ago. One of the linked choices was a story about life at sea and the availability of (fresh) water while keeping oneself in a state of good hygine.

He pointed out, in his fine style of prose, that aviators are regularly pilloried for being the ones who waste so much of the water, that others must suffer. He later learned, when assigned as “Ship’s Company” (that means the aviators share the joy of black shoe life, well, at least get a healthy taste of it), and that it is sometimes malfunctioning machinery, specifically the components used in water production or waste steam/heat recovery are the culprits, but, the ‘Shoe Navy has a cabal that always requires pointing the finger of blame at those who would slip the surly bonds of earth. It’s a union thing, I’m sorry, I gotta stick with the homeboys here.

Here’s my “water hours” story. It was a cool November in 1989. We had taken in all lines several weeks earlier in Charleston, SC and sailed east in our plucky little (453′) FFG. Equipped with two evaporators, and carrying a few over 200 aboard, conversing water was not a huge task, but did require us all to be mindful of only using our share. The CHENG and his A Div Officer did a fine job of maintaining the plant, so we weren’t constantly sweating the laod on this topic.

As we sailed through the Med, enroute Port Said to transit south through the Suez Canal and head for the Persian Gulf. The Chop (Supply Officer), Lt Wayne Aiken, had been on the previous cruise. At the Planning Board for Training the week before the transit of the Canal, Wayne suggested we accelerate the laundry cycle to get all the beding done, then we could make the transit easier on the water use, since you’re not allowed (by Navy sanitation requirements) to make water in enclosed waters, which the Canal certainly was. we copuld then top off the fresh water tanks, and shut down the evaporators at the 12 mile limit off of Egypt, yet still have plenty for food service and normal showers on the 24 hour transit, with reserves while the evaps caught up on the other side of Port Suez. I agreeed and the department heads and the command senior chief went about working up the details.

Over the next few days, the plan went like clockwork. The sheets got done and a few of the divisions got their dungarees taken care off off schedule. Early on the day of our scheduled arrival at Port Said (the north end of the canal), we had launched the helo on a Dawn Patrol, and brought them back aboard before we enetered Egyptian territorial waters (12 NM). I recall being on the bridge and, in addition to monitoring our navigational approach (I was navigator, too), I kept an ear out for the communications between the helo and CIC to make sure we didn’t break boundries.

We headed into the anchorage, the Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) letting the bridge know the evaporators were “wrapped up” as the Officer of the Deck (OOD) completed the entering port checklist. We anchored about an hour later and the CHENG called up, saying we were losing fresh water fast. Immediately, the chain of command was sent around the berthing spaces, looking for running showers, or other “appliances” in the heads. They all reported back, that nothing was running, and there were no findings of pooled water in the spaces. We were still using water. This was a real problem, more frustrating as we had taken the time to make a plan just to keep a problem like this from happeneing.

More hiking around the ship. Nothing, until the Ops Boss, LT Tom Strother, found a garden hose, draped over the side of the flight deck, running at full output. He also found an airman from the helo detachment, with a long handled brush, dutifully scrubbing down the helo, as was standard procedure, after the flight. The problem was, he was supposed to have a nozzle on the garden hose, so he would only use the water required.

In this case, we lost almost half of our fresh water over the side, courtesy of the well intentioned maintained, keeping the risk of corrosion on the very expensive flying machine of HSL-44 Det 4. Marty Keany and I had an interesting chat a few moments later.

We regrouped, we did make water in the Canal, but it was super chlorinated, which, is it’s own reward.

When I checked off the Command, one of the helo pilots, Carl Bush, was a great cartoonist, drew a cartoon of me. The view was from behind me, sitting at my desk. The 1MC (General Announcing System) was blaring “WATER HOURS ARE NOW IN EFFECT!” and I had a cartoon thinking bubble saying “All RIGHT!” in response. There were other details, like an overflowing In Basket, and an empty Out Basket.

Yes, Capt Lex, it was the aviators this time.

From CNN:

First woman pilot with any US flight demonstartion team.

Major Nicole Malachowski is Position #3 with the USAF Thunderbirds.

Message in the bottle: She decided at 5 years old, she wanted to be a fighter pilot. Not only did she do that, she has 200 hours of combat time in F-15 Eagles.

Check this as a philosophy for success:

“People talk about glass ceilings or breaking barriers,” she said. “I don’t even understand those concepts. Those words have actually never existed in my life.”

BZ to Major Malachowski for the following of her dreams and attaining them!

CNN Lou Dobbs reports video is here.

H/T: Black Five

1781 – French Fleet defeats the Britsh Navy at Yorktown, VA.

Thanks to Comte de Grasse. later honored by the naming of the USS COMTE DE GRASSE (DD-974), was an integral player.

Capt Lex, enroute a permanent appointment with CIVPAC/LANT/Wherever, is up to his eyeballs in real world work (building resume entries).

He issues this tasking:

Insanely busy. Irrationally so. Firing on all synapses. Every sinew a-twitch.

Busy.

So. Talk amongst yourselves. As though you needed any encouragement from me.

Suggested topic: Close Air Support. How very hard it can be to deliver warheads on foreheads when those forehead are in close proximity to other foreheads whom you are actually trying to protect. And who need it bad, or else they wouldn’t be asking for you to drop 500 pound bombs over the top of them, because really, who needs the stress?

But only they’re locked in mortal combat, like. In the beatin’ zone, but with the roles of beater and beatee not yet clearly defined. But whose situation is not improved if in fact you mid-ID the target or otherwise drop short.

It made me connect two stories of my life from 20 years ago and almost 20 years ago now. Lots of details, but at the end of the real world operations in 86 off Libya, and as a result of playing out tactics later the same year, we (my staff) forwarded our report up the chain in early ’87. I know now, in the aftermath of all of that, the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM) began a fairly quick exit from bag of weaponry for the Surface Warfare community.

It revolved around the same points as Lex asked us to discuss in his moment of high focus regarding Close Air Support during a “Danger Close” (more like “Danger ‘Coz We’re Grappling with Each Other”).

If you need to catch up, I talked about the operations in the vicinity of Libya (an how I never got to have a beer on DGAR) back in “A Journey Into History” series. Part I is here, and it has links to walk you to the end of the posts on the subject.

That group of posts highlighted a particular incident in March ’86, which was the outcome of the volumes of civilian (“White”) shipping that cluttered our surface picture. We didn’t have any TASM equipped units in any of the three battle groups that made up Battle Force “Z,” but we often talked among ourselves in the staff watch space, of how wonderful it would be to have the new “wonder weapon” at our disposal, how more mighty we would be on the bounding main….

This, too, was at the time I first met Adm Harry Harris, now of Guantanamo Bay and Detainee fame. I came to know LCDR Harry Harris, of the USS SARATOGA (CV-60) Operations Department, when he stopped a briefing to Adm David Jerimiah I was giving and said: “We can’t do that!” Me: Why not? Him: “We can’t have aircraft flying on an alerted target!” Me:… That, readers, is fodder for tomorrow’s Ropeyarn Sunday “Sea Stories” and Open Trackbacks. Now, back to my regularly scheduled ramblings:

Read the rest of this entry »

It was a quiet day Sunday, so I reached for the remote and scanned the guide list of shows playing. “Patton” was on and had been playing for about an hour….I clicked to the channel and settled back on the couch.

The scene that was playing, when I cut in, was Patton giving a speech to a French audience on Corsica, talking about how he would soon be at work, liberating the homeland of Lafayette. Lots of cheers from the crowd. As he completed the speech, his aide told him the press wanted a few minutes with him.

If this “docudrama” has anything to do with reality, then I’m projecting that George S. Patton suffered as our current day commanders do, but with out instantaneous news cycles:

One an editorialist disguised as a reporter asked him about his future assignments: No comment. Some other questions, then Patton said: “Off the record, they are sending me to Malta.” To that, the editorialist disguised as a reporter asked: “will you be slapping any soldiers in Malta?” as Patton was walking away. Patton stopped, but did not turn around. After a moment, he then stepped off through garden and kept walking away. Sound familiar?

A few scenes later, a German staff officer delivers a message to a general. The General expresses dismay (this part was subtitled) that Patton was now moving to the central Mediterrean and starts barking orders to get more troops moved to Greece and Crete, and to let the Italians defend their own country. They had to get ready for the offensive Patton would surely be heading up.

So, once again, if the story presented has a degree of truth, then the media was leaking critical information to the enemy back in the early 40s.

There were other scenes where the press dogged the great military mind and General Bradley had to corral him several times, to prevent the Allies and later the US from being embarassed.

So what has really changed, except the speed of the news cycle?

Just thinking….

Oh, and speaking of the accuracy of the movie, I found this site that discusses the very issue:

Despite the way the movie makes it seem, Patton did not sack men without a moment’s regard to them, he did not curse like a sailor, he did not believe in “victory at all costs” in spite of casualty lists. He had a paternal care for his men unlike any other great military leader – he knew that little things, like a hot meal and dry socks, contributed more to victory than all the ammunition in the world. Why did Patton’s men love him so much? Because he never expected more from them than he was willing to give himself. A Third Army sentry recounted his only meeting with Patton as,“Oh, yes, I knew Patton, though I only saw him once. We were stuck in the snow and he came by in a jeep. His face was awful red, and he must have been about froze, riding in that open jeep. He yelled to us to get out and push, and first thing I knew, there I was with General Patton pushing right alongside of me.”

Quoted from “Patton Uncovered” by B. E. Boland.

After reading this page, the secondary lesson is Hollywood, as now, was distorting the true nature of military leaders in order to grab the audience….so what else is new?

And…for you staff officers, or those subject to a higher headquarters, this quote that indicates the some of the materiall on B. E. Boland’s book:

Yet, incredibly, General Patton himself was removed from the command of Third Army in disgrace. In >“Patton Uncovered” you can delve into the high-level politics surrounding the military maneuvers, and learn of the deceit, treachery, betrayal and back-stabbing that were commonplace at headquarters.

So, once more, as I said above: “so what else is new?”

Three lessons, one movie, and discovery of a book that seeks the truth of it all.

Welcome back and remember: Inline tracks backs are working! C’mon…show me your work!

Today’s “sea story” is not one of humor, but one of finding out I was in the presense of a man who almost was one of the original Project Mercury astronauts….

It’s a repeat, but from my earlier days of blogging, and a story I think is worth sharing once again. Capt Hawkins was quite a man. I include why such a fine leader never made flag rank, either….

Posted in the comments by Station Commando as a “war story” (he’s in the Army):

Being that I’m in the Army I don’t have any sea stories but here’s a good story along the same lines as yours. When the movie Tears of the Sun was being filmed I was stationed in Hawaii (where they filmed the movie.)

We received a request for any black Infantrymen who we thought we could do without for a few weeks to go be extras for the movie. They wanted black soldiers because they were playing the Nigerian soldiers in the movie. Our company sent four people over. One of them returned later that day because the movie people didn’t think he had dark enough complexion to pass for a Nigerian soldier, the other three were accepted.

They were going to be working on the movie all day every day for about 4 weeks. About 2 days into it they kicked one of our guys back. This guy was the biggest, dumbest klutz you’ve ever seen. Whenever the movie people would film a scene he would always be falling down or losing his fake AK-47. In one scene where all the Nigerians run through a small river bed he actually ran the wrong way, realized he was going the opposite direction as everyone else, and then promptly dropped his rifle in the river and had if float away. While everybody else was charging ahead he was chasing his rubber rifle down the river, falling down the whole way.

They gave him his check and sent him on his way.

The rest of the guys got paid pretty well (about $700 a week if I remember right) and got to tell everyone they were in the movie. They did say that for all you hear about Bruce Willis supporting the troops he never once came and said a word to any of the guys there and they were instructed by someone with the movie that if they said anything to him, even in passing, they would be promptly fired.

They also said that Bruce Willis didn’t so much as run up a hill. They had the stunt double do anything that would result in so much as breaking a mild sweat. I guess that’s Hollywood for you.

Part III left us hanging with lots and lots of engagements with simulated TASMs of simulated and constructive targets, and now we got around throught the Striats of Florida and parked south of Eglin AFB for the firing to two test rounds.

Not only was there tight OPSEC (operational security) around this because of the implication of the Soviets getting wind of the exercise and gathering data, but a family member of one of the staff at EGLIN was a member of Greenpeace and that organization had a plan, also. Something about finding out the time the Tomahawks would jet across the Flordia panhandle, overflying I-10, so they might park an 18 wheeler, equipped with barrage balloons to be sent aloft in a tethered configuration to try to stop the missiles.

I’m not sure if they figured they’d work in a deterrent mode and we’d just not launch, or if they thought they’d be able to “wing” a 450kt, one ton flying machine and bring it down. If the latter, rather than the former, I think they hadn’t thought out the negative pblicity that might come the way of Greenpeace if bits of high speed debris smacked into homes, vehicles or playgrounds along the ballistic path towards “the scene of the crash.”

Be that as it was, no balloons were sighted on the day of the test firing. We were embarked aboard USS CONOLLY (DD-979), and the Joint Cruise Missile Project Office (JCMPO) officers accompanied us as well. As officers, we all demonstrated our concern by standing behind the well trained fire controlmen of CONOLLY. Many, many things were double, triple and quadruple checked, but the firing went as planned inthe late morning. The afternoon was scheduled for the IOWA’s shot. Long story short (shortened because I don’t recall all the details), problems arose and the decision was made to wait until the following morning to try again. We had heloed over to IOWA after CONOLLY fired and got the grand tour by Capt Larry Seachrist. She certainly was a magnificent ship and the crew very proud of their charge. Gun Plot was quite a highlight of the tour, with the WWII era computational equipment still in pristine order and able to put 2000 lb rounds on targets 23 miles away.

Back to CONOLLY for the night, then up for the shot. By mid-day, things had cleared up and the bird left the armored box launcher as planned. The rest of the flight was not a success. Part way along the flight path, the missile suddenly deployed the recovery chute, which, as one might expect, caught the chase pilots by surprise. The good part was the TLAM was over land and an unpopulated area. The standby explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) detachment scrambled from Eglin in an Navy SH-3 and secured the missile.

We packed up our cruise boxes on CONOLLY and heloed off to Eglin, where BOQ accomodations awaited. We anxiously awaited a chance to sleep, as we had pretty much had none over the last 6 days. We checked in and I got in my room, set my bag down and the phone rang: “Get down to the Commodore’s room so we can capture the lessons learned while they are fresh in our minds.” So much for sleep, but we did get some useful stuff on paper. The next day we flew back to Norfolk in a Navy 707 from Pax River, one equipped for data collection and had been used for the Tomahawk shots. We got a little sleep then.

We were “blooded” now with Tomahawk experience and one of the reports we had committed to in our own Op Order was a lessons learned report to the chain of command in a few months. Part V will provide the interesting details of the “fallout” of the development of tactics for a notional battleship battle group (BBBG), in addtion to the value of digging up enough detail to know what you’re talking about when you have to take some performance data forward.

Up for reading: Part V – The Final Chapter!